69: To Build and Grow View contentBelial666Supervillain ParagonAward Recipient9/11/2025Add bookmark#6,276"How is she?" Stannis asked, entering the guard tower for the fifth time that day.
"Sleeping, like an hour before and an hour before that," I told him as I sat back in the chair. "Asking only speeds things up when people are not doing their best.
"I know," the King's brother said and took a seat of his own.
Even my projection felt wrung out, illusion that it was, its outline flickering and shifting after a day of constant use. On what had been a soldier's cot next to me lay a young girl of five of six, deeply asleep. She had long brown hair, a bit too large ears, and a shadow of her father's square jaw. She was too striking and intense to be called beautiful but could have managed pretty if not for the blackened, calcified flesh of her left cheek, part of her jaw, and much of her neck. The skin had flaked off at places, to reveal more black beneath, but not the rot of a corpse. The only thing that came close that I had seen were prehistoric mummies found in caves with their black petrified bodies.
Stannis and I stared at each other for a moment. It wasn't a happy look from either end and that was unlikely to change.
"You have finished your examination," he stated. It wasn't a question but I answered anyway.
"I have."
"Then... I see. You cannot heal her." The skin around the man's eyes tightened as he forced his expression not to shift one iota.
"Not like this, no." Just in time, my image flickered.
"If I brought her to you in Essos so you could work your magic in the flesh?" Try as he might, he could not prevent a note of hope from coloring his voice.
"Then one chance to restore her. Another for her to die on the spot." I sighed. "A third for me to perish in her stead and Garin's Curse to spread anew."
"How do you know?" he demanded, voice sharp.
"I can see the outlines of peoples' futures when they are before me. Not very clearly or far ahead; five, maybe ten times as long as they have been present."
"More sorcery," he scoffed and well he should. So far it did not give him what he wanted, after all.
"A parlor trick, something woodswitches sometimes use to impress the gullible asking to have their fortunes read." But even a parlor trick can be of use - or a threat. "For a patient though? When that vague sense of your daughter's future vanished as I considered a treatment? There are not many ways to interpret that. When it was my future that went away instead? Even less."
"Why?" he growled out through gritted teeth, eyes blazing with fury and something more painful. "Why is this sickness beyond every treatment?"
"It was six hundred years before the Doom, during the last Valyria-Rhoynar war that Prince Garin gathered a quarter million of his people and marched down the Rhoyne towards Volantis. The dragonlords at the borders sent dragons against his host, but Garin and his people had magic of their own. Water rose to knock the dragons from the sky, to slay them and their riders."
A glance told me that Stannis was listening at that bit of history that only scholars knew in Westeros and most of them thought it mere legend.
"But Valyria was mighty in these days. Three hundred Dragonlords took to the skies in response to that battle, a full third of the might of the Freehold. Garin's host was rent in fire and doom, their mages overwhelmed by numbers and Garin himself captured. Then, my people being what they are, they did something exceedingly stupid. They brought the fallen Prince along as they moved up the river, burning as they went."
"Shows of force have their place," Stannis argued.
"If it had been that we would not be here," I told him. "They put Prince Garin in a golden cage and hung him from a tower in his own city so he could watch as they slew his people. In their hybris they forgot who Garin was, or perhaps did not believe that anyone could contend with their power. But Garin was the lord of those they slaughtered, a great mage in the domain of his people, and the Valyrian army had provided a city's worth of sacrifices specifically to him. He called upon the river gods and the Rhoyne flooded, dragging the city and all upon it into the water. And from those bloody waters rose the Grey Death, the first and direst form of Greyscale."
"No man could destroy an entire city by himself," the Baratheon lord told me. "Only the gods have such power."
"That army of Dragonlords did not believe either. They perished and from that day to this they have not rested. They are down there still beneath the water, they who were once the lords of fire. Their cold breath rises from the murk to make the fogs in the ruins of Chroyanne, now called The Sorrows, and their flesh has turned as stony as their empty useless brains. A thousand years of a curse reaping lives and futures upon this world, all for a moment of colossal idiocy."
"If what you say is true... then the Dragonlords of old could not break that curse." Never let it be said that Stannis was slow on the uptake.
"No. It would be easier to breathe life back into a man that had a battleaxe through his chest than fix Shireen's ailment." The little girl looked peaceful in sleep. I knew she was not; echoes of dreams that were more than dreams were there even now for those that knew how to look. Shireen, unlike either of her parents, had hints of magic. It was too early to tell how much, and it would probably take near a decade to be of any use. Not that it mattered now. "I am not saying it is impossible. I improved her health some, got the deadened areas beyond the petrification itself more lively, less stiff. But I cannot remove it before the Age of Magic is upon us once again." Or at least I hoped I would be strong enough by then.
"Magic is dead and gone, my Maester told me, but he was clearly wrong." Stannis took a minute to examine my flickering visage, even poke me in the leg with a wooden spoon from the soldiers' modest dinner table. "How long until this age of magic arrives?"
"The Red Comet will herald its coming in the two hundredth and ninety-ninth year after the Conquest, four hundred and one years after the Doom."
"Then we have nothing more to say until then," the hard-faced man told me. "Do not come to my lands again before that day." He rose, took up a still-sleeping Shireen in his arms and turned to leave. The magical sedation would fade soon enough but he was not willing to wait, it seemed.
"Lord Baratheon," I called out and he stopped by the tower's heavy bronze door. "Magic will not return alone. My advice would be to prepare your lands for the wars to come."
He left, keeping his resolution to say nothing. A few moments later my projection faded as well...
xxxx
"...with close to two hundred recruits from Saelys natives and another hundred and thirty from the Company of the Rose, we now have two times our number in untested troops," Jorah informed me the day after my short trip to Westeros. "Weapons, armor, tools, even food we have aplenty but few are at our usual quality. Most of the looted gear is... it is but trash, my lady. Blunt and chipped edges, cracked and rusty plating, oiling and leather that have gone rancid, quilted doublets with black mold. Trusting even the lives of levies to it would be a crime."
"We will burn what does not pass muster and reforge what remains back on Lys. What of the recruits themselves?" Men were more important and less easy to replace than gear.
"You can see for yourself how they are doing," the exiled lord said with derision. He had a point. All around us men of the Dread Company were putting the recruits through their paces. In the training fields, two versus one fights went to my men six times out of ten and even when they did not win the first time, the times after that were even more lopsided in their favor. From what I could see, the other exercises were worse - or better depending on perspective. "The recruits can barely march twenty miles at full load, maybe one in six can hit the target with a crossbow bolt at a hundred paces, and they barely know what to do with a shovel."
"I see, I see... tell me Jorah, how good were you in all that six months ago?" I asked him and he suddenly found he couldn't meet my gaze. "Because I clearly remember a knight that couldn't fight under the midday sun, couldn't speak any Valyrian, and didn't know that a proper shovel was also an axe, a hammer, an oar and a cooking pan but here we are."
"Yes, my lady," he muttered. "I know they are just untrained. I know there are good fighters among them even now. But looking over them in the training yard... it is hard to see what they could be. Most are merely the injured from the locals and the Roses that your sorcery returned their health to them."
"Nobody is perfect. They are survivors of at least one battle where they actually fought instead of running. You know better than I how valuable that experience is." He nodded of course. Courage in the face of long odds could not be taught. "Their loyalty is better than a green recruit's on account of that healing too."
"As you say, my lady. But what of spies? With that many new men..."
"Don't you know, Jorah?" I asked with a smirk that gave the older knight pause. Like all who had known me for some time, he knew not to trust that smirk at all. "We want spies to report about us now."
"My lady?" He sounded doubtful... which meant he still did not appreciate my genius. "The more our enemies know the more of a threat they are."
"Ah, but what if we knew that they know? Furthermore what if we knew what they planned to do about what they learned?" I chuckled. "Would we not then know even more about them than they would know of us?"
"Mayhap. But would you not know anyway through your magical art?"
"I cannot see everywhere, watch everyone at all times." I was not a goddess, or an ancient gestalt of long-dead greenseers. "Just by trailing back the spies' messengers uncovers foes I would never have known of on my own. The spies reports will also be hard to believe, if they report the truth, but when that truth is confirmed our foes will learn to trust their spies. Once they do, only then will we get the spies to tell those foes what we want instead of the truth. Besides," I sat back in my chair and sipped my chilled Lysene juice, a magically created ice-cube crunching between my teeth. "being more widely known would only bring us more recruits."
"As long as we can handle those recruits, my lady," Jorah added and gulped down his own drink. Unlike me, he had settled for mere cold water, the heathen. He saw drinking on the job as a flaw, even when magic meant the drinker would be... mostly sober.
"That is a point. I need to make more magic rings for those we have already." Forty miles away in the Narrow Sea, Featherball was eyeing a slow, fat and happy pirate ship sailing ponderously towards Torturer's Deep, unaware of the armed and fully operational feathery bomber squadron over their heads. "Magic aside, what do you think is our greatest priority when it comes to forging? More supply wagons? Proper armor? Melee arms? Bows and crossbows? Artillery?"
"I think proper training gear comes first, lady Belaerys. It will be months before the recruits can go on campaign." Seeing as how half the trainees put to trench work had managed to hit themselves in the face with their shovels I couldn't help but agree. "From there we could..."
The discussion went on in greater detail for hours. I couldn't wait until I had more people to foist this whole organization malarkey over. Award ReplyReport739Belial6669/11/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 70: Annoying Alchemies View contentBelial666Supervillain ParagonAward Recipient22/12/2025NewAdd bookmark#6,564Saelys, second moon of 294 AC
The steady pump of the bellows at the tireless hands of a wight sent a constant stream of air through the improvised forge, more of a chimney full of burning coal, really. It was the first time I had cause to built one of them, for shaping metal by hand had become my go-to for any small or simple works. But this... this was not simple. Coals flared yellow-orange through the fused alumina viewport, the color of the flame matching what feedback Pyromancy was giving. Hot exhaust gases were forced up the chimney through constant pressure, then through the ceramic tube leading back down, into a cauldron-sized carborundum crucible where a red-hot sludge bubbled as the exhaust gas was forced through it.
Dipping my finger into the slag, I confirmed its consistency had changed appropriately. This was the seventh attempt at this and if it failed like the rest it would be another afternoon's work down the drain. Like an extension of myself, the wight stopped pumping at a thought and I pulled the gas tube out of the mixture with care. Neither the red-hot sludge nor the poisonous exhaust were much of a threat to me but accidents could still happen and warehouses were not as resilient - as the burned out ruin of the previous lab could attest. At least this one had proper walls of roughly fused stone, which were far less flammable than straw-reinforced brick.
Picking up the three-hundred-pound crucible, I carried it over the four ceramic casts and filled them in one by one with fifty pounds of molten slag each. That done, I grabbed the first with both hands, closed my eyes, and reached into the still red-hot contents with Pyromancy. Stone-shaping used magical control of heat to manipulate molten material, shaping it both at great and microscopic levels. At the grander end was the shaping of whole castles and monuments that was still beyond me; single walls or something room-sized was about my limit. At the micro scale though it was control of the nature of the material itself. I suspected it was how the Iron Throne was made by Aegon the Conqueror, because that ludicrous lump of metal was both too large and complex to forge conventionally and had not rusted in hundreds of years.
The point here was not to make another overcompensating backside support, but something more useful. Guiding the heat, I forced the slag to fuse and crystallize in the first cast, a process that took several minutes of work to prevent formation of cracks, pull out gas bubbles, even out or remove impurities, and force the whole mass into one even crystal. Repeating the process for the other four was drudge work but unfortunately it was work nobody else could do. Even another pyromancer wouldn't have the knowledge to make the end result properly and last I'd seen, Lynesse was barely beyond lighting candles still.
Once the final step was complete, I grabbed the still fairly hot casts and warped the heat in them harshly and suddenly, making some parts ice-cold, others near-melting. With cracks almost as loud as gunshots the ceramic casts shattered and broke apart, revealing four perfectly shaped, brownish-black bricks with metallic luster.
xxxx
"I see your men are hard at work, Silvio," I commented as I kept up pace with the group of runners.
"That... that they are... my lady," the former troublemaker gasped as his team of six slowed down to wipe sweat off their eyes and to pick up the hundred-fifty-pound sandbags they had to carry through the next part of the obstacle course. The exercise was meant to simulate dragging an injured companion through rugged terrain in a fireman carry for three hundred yards through obstacles, in no longer than three minutes.
"How are your recruits finding the new course?" I asked him before following him over the four-foot wall, then leaping across the mud pit, casually handling my own double-sandbag load. The recruits needed to be in awe of their superiors after all, and maybe an example to aspire to.
"They are..." he huffed "...doing all right," he told me a bit breathlessly, pale white hair plastered to his forehead as we finished the last few yards of the dash and carefully set down our loads. The old bags were easy to rupture if dropped, to better visualise what could happen if you dropped an actual injured man and spilling any sand came with hours' worth of extra training, depending on the amount of spillage.
"That's good to hear, Silvio." I rewarded him with a smile, making him perk up in interest. Haha, sucker. "Come next tenday we'll be doing the one-mile carry in full gear, quarter hour minimum time. Though the training goal is to hit ten minutes by the end of the training season. A month's beef rations to the teams that manage it." I patted the gasping, sputtering soldier on the back. "Put on your magic ring and take a breather now, there's a good boy."
Nine tenths of soldiering was endurance and I wanted my men to be better than any other company even before the magical help.
xxxx
Making metal pipes in a preindustrial tech level was a bitch, but doable. Unfortunately, metal was not gonna cut it in this case, for more reasons than one. Lead, bronze and cast iron just didn't have either the needed stiffness or the durability, before their other shortcomings even came up. Clay and brick were too brittle and, again, not strong enough. Steel, with the right wrapping, might have been enough if not for the weight. Which meant it was back to melting refined white sand and splitting the silica and alumina in a crucible. Yes, it was definitely a crucible and not a cauldron, shut up.
Alumina had several interesting properties useful in the endeavor, not the least of which its strength, relatively light weight, and very low thermal expansion. Which was why I was practicing a mutated, sorcerous equivalent of baking by using a carborundum rod to roll near-molten alumina flat before wrapping it around the rod, rolling it a few times to ensure a seamless fusing, then drawing the still red-hot pipe length out with a magical construct and cooling it by draining away the heat.
Each pipe length was almost a yard long, over an inch in diameter, and needed at least four or five minutes of pseudo-baking to make. A whole day's work and a hundred and fifty pipes later, I still needed to fuse the pipes together, ensure the whole thing was actually straight, fix over a dozen flaws in the pipeline, then fill it with what it had been made to support and carry; three hundred pounds of copper.
The final product needed a dozen wights to carry to the top of the hill a few miles from Saelys, not due to weight but my own peace of mind. My experience with soldiers and their shenanigans was proving that they would find ways to break things that weren't supposed to be breakable, even a pipe made of bullet-proof glass that could bounce small arms fire. Maybe they'd get the idea to throw it down the hill, or something; I was not willing to risk it.
At least that part of the preparations I didn't have to do personally. Wights were perfect for carrying heavy loads and far less accident-prone than soldiers.
xxxx
"Thish... ish sho good!" I complemented the chef as I bit down on the thin, soft flatbread, layers of love-apple sauce from the Summer Isles, molten yellow cheese, mushrooms and crispy bacon. And if the complement seemed oddly self-serving, I had just introduced pizza to Martin's deathworld, perhaps my greatest innovation so far.
"It is, lady Belaerys," a somewhat rosy-cheeked Lynesse said as she downed her third glass of Myrish wine and made google eyes at an equally stupefied Jorah. My apprentice had surprised almost everyone by hitching a ride on Spark Plug's latest supply run, ostensibly to share some critical information with me. Not that anyone in the room believed that; even a usually socially-blind Viserys was snickering at the couple's antics.
"It is a most pleasing fare, my lady," Captain Wyll admitted as he chewed thoughtfully. "I have plied the sea trade from Bear Island to Yi-Ti and from Skagos to the Summer Isles and not encountered its like."
"It is an old Valyrian dish," I told them, instantly drawing the Targaryen siblings' attention. It was true, from a certain point of view; Valyria was a magical Rome equivalent and pizza was an Italian invention at its heart. "In ancient times, the flatbread and love-apple sauce would be topped with a variety of ingredients; cheeses of all kinds, meat cuts, mushroom and fruits, even certain types of fish and fish-based sauce, though I am not partial to the latter. Thus the dish could vary from a simple flatbread pie for commoners, to elaborate creations even high lords and ladies would enjoy."
"It's certainly enjoyable," Jorah said, wolfing down his ninth piece for the night. Well, he was by no means a small man. "Are we celebrating our recent victories then? Two moons after the fact?"
"Battles are not the only things we have to celebrate, Sir Mormont," I told him with the air of an adult revealing profound secrets to the younger generation. "Lynesse, did you not have something to show us?"
"Oh gods! I almost forgot" the young Hightower woman tore her eyes from her husband and fiddled with the small pack she had brought with her. "I was so excited... but now..." she blushed, the liquor messing more than a little with her thoughts as she unwrapped the package to reveal a tiny clay pot. This ought to be good so I did not interrupt despite certain concerns.
Lynesse placed the pot on the table with exaggerated care, then pressed at the soil with a finger before dropping a bean into the small hole she'd made. Then, biting her lips in a comical attempt at concentration in her inebriated state, she grabbed the pot with both arms and closed her eyes. For about a minute nothing happened - or at least nothing that others could see. My magical senses were picking up Lynesse's amateurish sparks of magic spilling out of her hands and into the pot haphazardly. Another minute passed before with an almost inaudible pop the bean split and started to sprout, visibly growing before our eyes at about a day's worth of growth every minute. Once it had grown its stalk a good handspan over the small pot and formed a pair of small leaves to boot Lynesse opened her eyes and smiled.
"Wow, look Vissy, magic," Daenerys said, looking at the pot with wide eyes. "Could I learn to do that? Could I?" the not yet ten year old asked, even more excited at this turn of events than Lynesse herself.
"Yes..." Viserys said with a gleam in his eyes, not speaking to his sister at all. "Magic."
"Isn't it though?" the normally shrewd Lynesse said with a giggle, completely missing the underplay. "I was practicing lighting candles when one day I saw a nearby flower growing out of season. So I tried and..." she waved her hand at the growing beanstalk, flushing prettily and more than a little drunkenly.
The tiny beanstalk promptly caught fire, flashing a deep, emerald green. From her expression, it wasn't a result Lynesse had tried for or wanted...
xxxx
Four teams of wights pulled at ropes over a hill as rain began falling with a vengeance. The tropical storm moving over Saelys had been the perfect time for the next step of the experiment, so I lost little time in having my undead minions work to set it up as the stormclouds moved in. With every pull a barely bending tube of fused alumina over a hundred and fifty yards long rose higher and higher, the line of copper in its heart gleaming through the glass even in the low light. A rounded spike of bared copper almost a foot long gleamed even brighter at its tip as it rose towards the heavens.
The moment the pipe was fully upright, more wights moved to stabilize and lift it, while I moved with the four black-brown bricks I'd cast the week before. Melting a bit of copper in my hands, I quickly joined the four on top of each other, then the lower end of the pipe on top of them. Leaving two wights to keep the base stable while the rope teams held it up against the wind and rain, I moved way, way back.
The hill was the tallest point for many miles, and the pipe was the tallest point on the hill, a long spike of highly conductive copper raised towards the stormclouds. It didn't take long for the first eye-searing flash and ear-splitting boom of lightning and thunder to shake the hilltop as the currents of earth and air grounded themselves through my creation. My hair, kept dry with a touch of elementalism, stood on end as it happened again and again, my ears ringing and afterimages burned into my retinas as I cackled.
When the storm finally subsided and the wights drew the pipe away, I approached the bricks that were not really bricks with my dagger of meteoric iron. The closest fifty-pound brick almost ripped the dagger off my fingers when it came within a couple of inches of it, the metal sticking to the single giant crystal of synthetic magnetite with a snap.
Now this... this would prove very useful... Award ReplyReport579Belial66622/12/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 71: Between confusion and clarity View contentBelial666Supervillain ParagonAward Recipient26/12/2025NewAdd bookmark#6,656Lys, third week, second moon of 294 AC
Spark Plug was an odd name for a ship, odder still for nobody knowing what the name meant. It was also known for being owned not by a merchant-prince, not by a great House in either Westeros or Essos, not by one of the Free Cities or the great masters of Slaver's Bay, but by a sorceress. Everyone had heard the rumours going around for months now, of old soldiers healed and rivals burned with a glare. Many were eager to know more, especially with the recent events on the southern coast of the Disputed Lands and the battles fought there less than two moons past.
Many were the eyes following the ship's movements, those curious about the affairs of a sorceress, those more cautious than curious, and those that hated and wanted to see them brought to ruin. Spark Plug's recent weekly travels between Lys and the town of Saelys were looked into by dozens, maybe even hundreds of those curious onlookers. Most of them were disappointed. The formerly Westerosi cog had not become either some floating haven of debauchery and obscenity nor a place of terrible, bloody blasphemies as many thought sorcerers delved into. The news of hundreds of sell-swords being burned alive were still something to worry about, but the ship itself seemed a right and proper military vessel, ferrying weapons and supplies to the front, if slightly odd supplies at times.
The scrutiny from the Council of Magisters took the form of more than just watchers. Official messengers from both the Temple of Trade and First Magister Orthys were escorted aboard by a squad of the city's guardsmen each and sailed with Spark Plug on its next trip to Saelys, carrying messages of importance. Having no other option given the Council's control of Lys - both of the city itself and all its claimed territories - Captain Wyll had no option but to agree to ferry them along. Spark Plug left Lys' main harbor on the third day of the third week of the second moon of 294 After Conquest. What only a handful of people in the world knew was that that particular trip would herald the next phase of the war to come.
Two hours after the sorceress' ship's departure, two of the ships of the Golden Company sailed forth along with a convoy of Lyseni merchant vessels it had been hired to escort. They sailed north-west, their planned route aiming to almost hug the Westerosi coast as they sailed around Tyroshi waters on their way to Pentos and Braavos. Night fell a third of the way to Torturer's Deep and the Stepstones, the south wind helping them make good time though it would be months before they reached their destination still.
Only one man from the convoy noticed the bird flying out of the ship towards the North and he had been the one to send it. Nobody noticed the bird making a ninety-degree turn to the East as soon as it flew out of sight from the convoy...
xxxx
The Lyseni merchant ship was sailing south-east for the second week, moving slowly and ponderously. They would eventually sail around the Valyrian Peninsula, as all ships not crewed by madmen must, for to go through the Smoking Sea had been a fate worse than death for as long as said sea had existed. With Lys three hundred miles behind them, the crew experienced and ready for anything, and the ship unburdened by anything except a light load of precious gems and alchemical substances in the Captain's strongbox, the journey promised to be swift and profitable.
The warfleets of Tyrosh and Myr they had left behind and pirates plied their trade more along the stepstones than further East, so as long as the weather held they should be safe. And on their destination, the pleasure-slaves of Yunkai awaited. Less pleasing to the eye than Lyseni courtesans of Valyrian descent perhaps, but cheaper and more plentiful... especially in this time of war and ruined slave-ships. Why risk the turmoil of the Narrow Sea when the slave trade was even stronger further East? Thus they flew the colors of a humble merchant vessel and a poor one with little in the way of wealth or cargo. The gods were with them; the only oddity so far had been a single vulture flying high in the sky the day before.
As night fell, said vulture met with two more of its dark-feathered kin, two grey-feathered sea eagles almost as great in size, and a grey-white owl that rivaled any one of them. The six birds flew swiftly and tirelessly despite their burden, the owl taking point as twilight was replaced by darkness. If any men saw the odd flight despite the darkness they might begin to notice more oddities in the group beyond their varied species. How they flew almost as one. How they moved a little faster than any of them should have with their loads. How those loads gleamed in the moonlight, showing they were neither messenger scrolls nor the small animals that often fell prey to such large and dangerous birds.
None upon the slave-ship disguised as a merchantman noticed more than the one vulture they had seen the day before, not even when the flight came closer. Not as the great birds descended from the heights of over a mile to a few hundred feet, not when they went even lower in the final approach. It was dark; it would have taken an owl's eyes to see them coming, the same owl's eyes sharing what they saw with the rest of the flight through their mutual link with the powerful mind that had collected and changed them. Six birds that now understood what ships were, what precautions they had to take to avoid being seen, what tactics worked best for early aircrafts assaulting an unsuspecting oceanfaring vessel.
Six bombs of three pounds each were dropped. Five of them found their mark, glass containers bursting upon impact with wood and igniting into twenty-foot-wide fireballs. With nearly the entile length of the deck aflame, there was no saving the ship. With magical flames eagerly spreading across pitch-covered planks, oiled sails and rope, by the time any among the crew got over their surprise and shock, abandoning the burning ship safely was all but impossible. Only five sailors and the captain managed it, all of them with burns, and by the time morning came all had been swallowed by the sea...
xxxx
Saelys, third week, second moon of 294 AC
The rush of power and vitality from distant lives ended in fire was more refreshing than a dozen cups of chocolate milk, more of a rush than the adrenaline of battle, more renewing than a month's rest and good food. It wasn't relaxing like a good bath and it lacked true pleasure, and for once it wasn't the most interesting thing going on.
With care and the barest touch of Pyromancy, I slid free the small but highly detailed seal without ruining either its shape or its color and unfurled the letter-locked message in the right sequence to ensure the paper it was made of would not tear and make the tampering obvious. Without having seen it folded through the eyes of the messenger bird and asking Qyburn for a crash course in medieval letter security I would have certainly ruined it.
The revealed letter was a dull supply manifest for the Golden Company's trading partners and allies in Pentos, done in a light pen and tiny letters. It wasn't even in code. I turned it over, straightened the delicate paper then made it fire-proof before pouring molten silica on its back. As soon as the material cooled and fused into a glass tablet, I pressed it down on a different sheet of paper, hard enough for the tiny bumps on its surface to make the same divots that existed on the back of the original. Then I gently spread some coal dust over it, revealing a very different message.
It was in code, but that wasn't the issue. What the Golden Company's agent had done was 'write' on the paper with an inkless stylus, denting the words on the surface in a way that would never take on tougher parchment, before turning it over to write the decoy with a pen that wouldn't scratch into the paper nearly as much. Even with having taken over the Golden Company's messengers, having a copy of their cipher, and seeing it being written I had not been able to tell what it said; reading someone's writing from just their hand movements was beyond me. With the message copied and revealed, decoding it was the work of just minutes.
Frowning in thought, I folded up the original, reapplied the wax seal and sent the messenger bird on its way to its intended destination. The greatest limitation of my spying was time; they were only so many hours in the day I could pay attention to any spies, so many things that didn't quite stick in a bird's memories, too many players to keep track of. I was not omniscient... and the wrong turn of events could easily prove deadly. But a trap turned on its head? Now that was opportunity...
xxxx
"Jorah, how ready are the new recruits, really?" my shadow asked without preamble as it manifested next to the exiled knight where he sat in the training grounds after another long march around the town. Having months of experience with my sudden appearances by now, he was not very surprised, merely pensive.
"Were we in Westeros, I would think them well-trained, well-equipped levies." His eyes scanned the lines of slowly dispersing soldiers with a scowl. "But we are not in Westeros. I have seen sell-swords as skilled as full knights and more. Came close to being slain by one such in a duel, despite my better arms and armor. They are not ready for another enemy like the Company of the Cat. Our veterans I would trust to hold their ground, they more than proved their mettle. The new... recruits would suffer losses in such a fight, possibly even rout."
"So we would better have parity of numbers then..." I mused. Fair fights were for suckers, though. "How many of them can shoot a crossbow?"
"All of them. Two hundred shots every day for a moon? In Westeros they would be deemed highly skilled." Also damn expensive. They had literally worn out the first batch of crossbows completely, as well as the bolts themselves. Two hundred silver stags per recruit down the drain, another two hundred for the replacements; eleven hundred golden dragons for our force in total. At least the steel cranks would not need replacement for years still.
"Get them quietly packing, Jorah. I want the whole Company ready to embark in two days... but make it seem like we are not ready for it." Two days for Spark Plug to arrive with our new... guests. Two days for me to turn another slaver ship's worth of life-force into healing rings.
"What brought this on, my lady?" he asked. "Do the merchant-lords of Lys have another battle for us?"
"Not quite, Jorah," I told him with a nasty smirk. "But it should prove profitable."
xxxx
Spark Plug sailed up the river Sal right on schedule, stopping on the town's rudimentary port to unload our esteemed 'visitors'. Warned in advance, Captain Wyll and his men pretended to unload some cargo while in reality emptying the ship's cargo holds of our less useful gear to make space. Those would be lent to Saelys' surviving militia and quite a few boxes would end up in the hands of the locals, adding to the abundant numbers of shovels already there. They would cause trouble to somebody down the line, but I had extracted promises from the more prominent locals that they would not do in the Lyseni arrivals while we could still be blamed for it.
The locals had readily agreed. Saelys was eager for a change in management and after quietly sharing both the Council of Trade's intentions and some of my own plans with their unofficial leaders, they had both further motivation for said change and a timetable for when it would be best for it to happen. The next harvest from the plantations was five months away and Lys the island had a food deficit. It would be interesting if something were to happen to its mainland farming centers...
The representatives from the Temple of Trade and the Council of Magisters came to find me in the old overseer's manor in the town center, not giving even lip-service to manners and propriety. Eight guards in blue and gold tabards over light chain escorted two peacocks in purple robes that thought they had power because they spoke for the Council - or rather House Orthys and its increasingly heavy-handed control on Lysene politics. It was a hilariously short-sighted strategy from their political masters, one that was rapidly angering and alienating the less political and more action-oriented Houses like the Saans, Pendaerys, Moraqos and, of course, the Ormollens. So much so that I was tempted to string my bow and shoot them all down where they stood, knowing that I would survive the political shitstorm and in the end the Orthys and their allies might not. The eight city guards certainly weren't enough to stop me, let alone the rest of Dread Company or the locals.
But that would raise some flags, give warnings to those that could read the situation, and the Council still had the Golden Company camped on the island itself. Something needed to be done about that and the only way I saw was for the war to get hotter... which the little set-up arranged by everyone's favorite conspiracy might do nicely. Thus when the ten of them barged into my temporary home without permission, they did not die screaming but were instead welcomed as theoretically my political superiors.
"Flann Belaerys of the Dread Company?" the older and snootier of the two messengers demanded, all but sneering at me and my armor. I had, after all, deliberately not taken a bath or taken the armor off for a couple of days just for this moment.
"I am she," I told them, scowling prettily even if I wasn't smelling as nicely. "What is this about?"
"By order of the Temple of Trade and the Council of Magisters, your Company is tasked with returning to Lys and giving account for your time here," he pompously declared as if reading from a script - which he probably was. "You are to depart no later than two days hence. Failure to comply will be taken as breaking of your contract in time of war, with a penalty of no less than fifty thousand dragons to you and your allies."
"I see..." And I did. Two days was too short a time for most companies to fully mobilize without reduction of combat effectiveness and supply issues. It was certainly too short for a town without a major port and only a single ship currently present, which would have forced us to leave all our new recruits here with no guarantee of being able to pick them up later, effectively disbanding them. Even without foreknowledge it would be obvious someone was playing dangerous games.
Now why would they want me and my retinue on a single ship crossing a known route at a known time, one wondered...Last edited: 29/12/2025 Award ReplyReport655Belial66626/12/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 72: Bait and Trap View contentBelial666Supervillain ParagonAward Recipient31/12/2025NewAdd bookmark#6,761Saelys, third week, second moon of 294 AC
As Lynesse slid her ritual dagger along the docile horse's neck, a crimson torrent fountained into the ready basin. The horse did not scream, did not fight, did not flee; it merely stood there in my mind's grip as its lifeblood poured out. In my mind's eye the glimmer of life-fire left it, pouring into the vessel prepared for it. A hemisphere of black glass as large as any cauldron, fused and shaped by my hand, it already contained the blood of dozens of animals. Rubies gleamed at its rim, little crystals shaped into Valyrian script. Ōregon they said, hold. Gīda they added, steady.
Beyond the ritual site, dozens of cooking fires were tended to by local workers, the carcasses quickly butchered and prepared for eating or preservation. Hundreds of horses had survived the recent battle, many of them injured, crippled, or brain-dead from my magic. Useful as they might have been if only for experimentation, we had no way to take them with us with only the Spark Plug as available transportation. Thus they were marked for slaughter and consumption, if not in quite the way the locals were used to. As my apprentice slew the next horse to shuffle up to her ritual with help from my magic, careful observation noted a tiny spark of life-fire going not into the ritual but absorbed by Lynesse herself. It was only noticed because I knew to look for it and had seen her go through dozens of sacrifices in a row, so small a change that would have been easily missed otherwise... but a permanent one.
Life-fire was an odd, almost conceptual representation of someone's vitality, strength and significance. It was the combination of Divination and Pyromancy that revealed it to me, or perhaps ability in those spheres of magic did not merely reveal it but allowed me to see and manipulate the world in ways that shouldn't exist. This was not the first time that I have seen that inner fire increase in someone; healing and strengthening the troops had similar effects over many repetitions. The change in Lynesse went deeper however, the additions ceasing to be additions and becoming Lynesse's own innate flame. It was the first time I was seeing someone else do this to themselves and two things immediately stood out.
The first was that Lynesse could hold onto less from each sacrifice than I could. The total power was the same and most of it still went to the ritual, but less of it stayed with her. Was it due to less skill and experience? Less innate talent? The nature of our respective bloodlines? I had no idea. The second observation was that the small amounts of life-fire added more to Lynesse than they would have to me. Where my gains from such animal kills would be negligible, she grew in small but noticeable steps. The memories and knowledge from my visions told me that was because such paltry offerings were insignificant to me. Physics - inasmuch as they could be applied to magic - said that all things flowed easily from high concentration to low, but the reverse became harder the greater the difference. Which logic really applied again I had no idea.
Each one of Saelys' ten thousand workers and slaves got a full belly and ten pounds of preserved meat as our last gift to them. Lynesse got a bit of magic, lots of frustration and annoyance at having to play butcher, and a night of stress relief with Jorah. I got some answers and some materials to work with, but even more questions in the meantime...
xxxx
The Summer Sea, between Lys and the Disputed Lands, fourth week, second moon of 294 AC
Spark Plug sailed down the river Sal and into the sea on the deadline we had been given, all the preparations worked over the past two days completed with mere hours to spare. It was loaded with nearly fifty tons of weapons, armor, and scrapmetal salvaged from the destroyed sell-sword companies, another twenty tons of silks, spices and artworks of moderate value looted from their camps, and tens of thousands of gold dragons worth of precious metals, gems, and items of high value. Ten more tons of cargo were devoted to the equipment of the Dread Company, with another dozen in food and water. Only two items of Valyrian Steel were among them; a half-pound amulet bearing the sigil of some long-dead house and a decorative goblet depicting a long-haired, sword-wielding woman having sex with a dragon. Valyrian art was an acquired taste.
There was enough of the spell-forged black metal in the two pieces for a rapier or a spearhead. The problem was that the visions of past craftsmen had yet to reveal the secrets of its reforging, let alone its original creation. Just like the arrowhead that had almost killed me two months before no amount of flame, magical or otherwise, even got the metal warm. Its rippling black surface seemed to drink in the heat with no apparent limit, much as it did force that would mar or deform it. After wasting four hours on increasingly frustrating attempts, I decided to use my time more productively. The secrets of Valyria were unlikely to be rediscovered in the two days of sailing between the mainland and the island of Lys, especially with certain events so carefully set up by our enemies.
"What are you making?" the cute, silver-haired, purple-eyed nine-year-old asked... then immediately tried to poke the brightly glowing, orange mass of alumina I was slowly shaping by hand. Only my quick reactions prevented a potentially lethal accident.
"Daenerys, do you remember how I'm immune to fire?" I told her, holding her wrist in a vise-like grip as she still tried to poke at the glowing half-molten mass that was hotter than molten iron.
"Yes?" she told me, eyes round and begging like an overeager puppy's.
"Do you remember how you aren't?" I pressed on.
"Fire isn't that hot," she said mulishly with all the conviction of a child that knew everything and feared little.
"Yes, yes, you can stand a candle. This-" I pointed at the mass floating on one of my constructs "is about as hot as dragonflame. Observe." I scooped up a dollop of the extremely hot material and moved it over the water glass on my worktable. "Human bodies are mostly water. When exposed to high enough heat they don't burn..." I dropped the glowing-orange bead into the water. Predictably, both bead and some of the water exploded with a sound like a gunshot. Made of quarter-inch fused alumina the glass did not shatter, but the boom still rattled the glass pane in the cabin's window.
"Gaah! What the-" Viserys jumped to full wakefulness at the sound, casting off his sheets and fumbling for the dagger he slept with. It took him a moment to confirm no enemy was invading and that we were responsible for the noise, at which point he threw us a nasty look. Dany giggled.
"I am teaching Daenerys some common sense," I 'explained' before turning to my giggling student. "In both nature and magic, the brighter and more colorful something is, the more dangerous it can be. Animals, spells, people; flashy means threat. If you see a bright orange frog in the swamps don't touch it. It is uneaten despite being so easy to find because the predators know well how poisonous it is." Unlike certain idiot adopted brothers, I did not add. "Similarly, when a tall, gorgeous, half-naked redhead wearing red silk, gold and rubies walks through the slums, rapists and thieves know not to target the obvious sorceress."
"But you aren't a redhead and don't wear red silk," Dany protested, tilting her head as she took me in.
"No, but that's because I want to be attacked. Those that do try mark themselves as acceptable targets." A tactic that kept on giving while decreasing the number of scum in this world. "But if I chose otherwise..." I swept my hands over my head then down my gown. Both turned a deep red the color of spilled blood or spun rubies, even my eyes shifting to match them.
"Magic!" Dany squealed and clapped her hands, making Viserys groan in exasperation.
"Yes, magic," I nodded, before returning to my original look as the brief illusion faded. "Much safer magic than trying to catch a mass of molten crystal, no?" Patting the girl's head and sending a drop of my blood to soak into her hair, I changed her colors to match the previous illusion. "If you are good, I'll make you a ring that will let you change your hair and eye color through several hues without using dyes," I told her and she squealed again.
Thus distracted, Dany went to annoy her brother and left me to add coal dust and scrap metal to my project as it cooled, before adding some of the stored ritually empowered blood. The fifth orb done, fifteen more still to go. I was behind schedule but it couldn't be helped, not with several people cooped up per cabin. Lynesse and Jorah were the least packed in, but that was because none wanted to share a cabin with the very love-struck couple. At least we had it far easier than the sailors and soldiers who were packed almost like sardines below deck.
Even Spark Plug was notably low on the water with all the added weight, though not even close to dangerous levels. Anyone seeing the ship would assume it was loaded with loot from our recent successes and while there was some truth to that, it was also packed with every soldier and new recruit, carrying six hundred and sixty-six souls in total. I felt it was an auspicious number, though from the grumbles overheard through the thin walls not everyone shared that optimistic view... especially with all but the sailors under strict orders not to show themselves above-deck in significant numbers.
Traps needed bait, as I had just explained to young Daenerys...
xxxx
Featherball woke me up in the early hours of the morning, over an hour before dawn and with the faintest of lights on the horizon. Information flowed through our bond, shared sight beyond sight as heat, magnetic lines and even more obscure forms of visual clues were passed on. I got up and reached out to a fitfully sleeping Viserys and Daenerys with my mind's shadow. A minute later they were in a much deeper, more relaxing sleep from which nothing less than the roar of a bomb would wake them from for at least a few hours. Good. Children and half-trained princes had no business in what was coming.
I took a few minutes to put on my armor of fine chain, leather and plate, check my spear and bow, and put the bag of meticulously prepared gifts over my shoulder with a modicum of care. It probably wouldn't do anything if dropped from only a couple of feet, but better safe than sorry. Then I got out and made for the Captain's cabin. A hard rap on the second mate's cabin woke up Jorah, though Lynesse remained asleep even as the exiled knight got ready at a nod from me.
Captain Wyll was awake despite the early hour, poring over maps of the Narrow Sea under the light of a glow-crystal I had made for him. He had been very enthusiastic about the gift; it turned out light and warmth without flame was very useful aboard any ship not just for the savings in lamp oil but for the absence of a fire hazard. The old Northman looked up as I walked in and his tired expression shifted into a cold mask of seriousness.
"Is it time, then?"
"Yes." No need to beat around the bush. "My scouts just made out five ships approaching us from the West under cover of night. No flags, no markings."
"Five?" he growled. "The Old Gods take them. What else can you tell me."
"As far as I can tell, they have crews of a hundred and fifty to two hundred... possibly a thousand men all in all." His expression darkened. "They are all cogs, but built for speed in the open sea, not cargo. They'll catch up an hour after dawn."
"Idiots," the old man spat. "If they meant to ambush us they should have caught up before dawn, not given us time to prepare."
"Not every Captain could time an intercept even knowing our route in advance," I countered and he scoffed, his opinion of the opposition dropping. "Besides, the Dread Company had less than two hundred men on the roster on last count and you had fifty sailors, both returning home after a long, exhausting campaign. They probably thought five ships and a thousand men would be enough."
"Slaver scum," Captain Wyll spat. "I'll get the men ready. Should we pretend to run, or sail on fat, dumb and happy?"
"The latter until they come so close even an idiot could not miss them," I decided, looking at the maps again. "Then pretend to panic and run when it's too late. Let's not interrupt the enemy when they are making a mistake, but invite them to make more mistakes. Fifty miles out from Lys where the currents and winds are slowest would be the best place to be 'caught'..."
After all, we did not want them running away either. Award ReplyReport656Belial66631/12/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks 73: Fleet Freebooting View contentBelial666Supervillain ParagonAward Recipient4/1/2026 Awarded ×1NewAdd bookmark#6,819The Summer Sea, between Lys and the Disputed Lands, fourth week, second moon of 294 AC
"Absolutely not."
Viserys had already spent the past ten minutes putting on his padded linens, hardened leather, mail, and other pieces of armor with Dany's unskilled but enthusiastic help and he was halfway through strapping on his weapons when he had finally thought to ask and I had happily shot down his dream of naval glory. The Targaryen siblings were supposed to be asleep, but I had either seriously messed up the sleeping spell I put on them, or something else did and now I had to deal with at least one would-be dragonlord with too high opinion of himself.
"I understand your doubts, Lady Belaerys, but I am no longer the foolish man I was when we first met," the still very foolish eighteen-year-old straightened to his full height and gave me his best solemn-and-mature expression. "I had but little skill with the blade then but I have trained hard these past four moons, have seen what real battle looks like, crossed blades with assassins and held my own. Even Ser Mormont praised my improvement." Which while true had been more about encouraging the exiled prince to keep up the hard work than anything else. "I am more ready for my first fight than most squires would ever be. If I do not take part in this fight, when will I gain the experience all warriors need to improve?"
"Not a bad argument, I'll give you that. Here is a counterpoint." I vaulted over the cot that separated us, striking in a blur of speed that most people couldn't have reacted to. To his credit, Viserys started to pull back but by then my gauntleted fingers had closed around the cross-guard of his sword and I gave it a pull at my full strength. In the last couple of months of slowly filling out, my gangling teenage body had started edging out Jorah in strength; the Targaryen prince had a snowball's chance in Valyria of holding on and in the blink of an eye he found himself at swordpoint to his own blade. "Both Jorah Mormont and I have met enemy warriors better than us in the field and barely survived. What do you think your chances would be if one of them came at you?"
"I..." he swallowed, eyes wide, then his face hardened as he rallied. "That is a threat any man faces in battle. If I fled from it would I really be a man?"
"I suppose that's true," I said, more impressed with him than I was willing to admit. Besides, he was trying. "Here's counterpoint number two; how long have you trained to fight on a ship?"
"...since we disembarked from Saelys?" he sheepishly replied after spending a few seconds trying to think of a plausible lie and falling flat. We all saw him slipping and falling on his ass during said training, after all.
"And you believe a day of training sufficient to face raiders and pirates with a lifetime of naval experience?" I put into the question all the scorn that idea deserved before moving on. "Counterpoint number three; how well can you fight without armor?"
"Why would I fight without armor?" he asked in confusion. "Even the meanest hedge knight knows the value of mail and plate."
"Because metal sinks," I informed the clueless boy with a sigh. "Were you the strongest swimmer in the world, you'd be hard pressed to tread water while wearing thirty pounds of steel. Seamen know this and will try to kick any foe in armor overboard if they can." I flicked my fingers at his armored gauntlet, the dull metal clink underscoring the point. "And you know not how to stop them with so little experience at sea."
"You wear armor yourself!" he protested immediately.
"I am faster, stronger, more skilled and have magic," I shot back. "Even so, I was kicked overboard and nearly drowned not half a year ago." Which was why I wasn't planning to duel any enemy leaders at sea this time. "I can deal with such tactics now. Can you say the same?"
"I can still fight!" he insisted, abandoning logic for stubborness.
"I don't know, let's ask your sister," I told him in a fake sweet tone before turning to the nine-year-old in the room. "What do you think, Dany?"
"I think Vissy is being dumb again," she immediately proclaimed, arms crossed and face twisted into the cutest little scowl on this side of the Narrow Sea, causing her brother to deflate with a squeal of punctured ego. For some reason, the idiot prince had started listening a lot more to little Daenerys lately and I was not above using the little tyke to curb his worst flaws. Naturally Dany was all for kicking her big brother down a peg, as little sisters were always eager to do.
The exiled prince groaned and sat down on the cot, half-heartedly pulling off his gauntlets. Good. If he would not listen to reason, embarrassment would have to do.
xxxxI climbed the mainmast for the third time, bringing yet another load to the crow's nest. Had this been the old leather-covered wooden barrel the ship had come with it would already be groaning under the weight, but replacing the thing with a lighter, stronger basket of alumina-coated steel had been among the first improvements made to Spark Plug since its change of ownership. It was also a bit wider, to better accommodate snipers firing crossbows from it, or one archer firing her oversized longbow.
The Dread Company's two best crossbowmen were already carrying their own gear to the second, slightly lower-hanging barrel on Spark Plug's foremast. With three crossbows, a hundred bolts, and two dozen javelins for each sniper, they could prove a persistent and deadly annoyance over prolonged engagements. The two sniper nests wouldn't be as effective as the fighting tops of the later centuries of the Age of Sail, but those had been too great modifications to make in the time we'd had. Still, in a world of warriors with enough combat prowess to personally turn entire battles, shooting or dropping steel javelins down at them from beyond their immediate reach seemed like a great idea... and I at least could do a lot more than just shoot them.
Captain Wyll was already setting up two of the Company's giant crossbows on swivel mounts on Spark Plug's forecastle and aftercastle, with two more modifications. The first was the transparent shields of fused alumina protecting the gunner manning the weapon, a thin but flexible sheet of laminated glass that would have stopped at least a few hits from a Browning heavy machine gun. Against most medieval weapons it allowed the weapon crews to work in relative safety, and as the first enemy cog came within four hundred yards they did just that.
The two bolt-throwers sent a pair of one-pound steel bolts at the smaller ship's direction, both missing their intended targets when fired beyond their effective range against individual people. That didn't mean much when the first bolt pierced through a shield to kill the warrior behind it while the other skipped through a group of sailors, clipping at least two limbs in the process; with the enemy crew crowding the deck and eager to board us, they presented a far bigger target than normal.
A catapult on the enemy ship fired in response but the rock fell short, then the respective weapons' crews hurried to reload. This was when the second modification to the giant crossbows came into effect. Instead of cranking a windlass mechanism, the gunner quickly attached a pulley to the cord then the team of six armored wights bracing against a railing drew each giant crossbow through sheer strength. Ten seconds after the first pair of bolts were fired another pair followed, then ten seconds after that came the third, long before the enemy ship could reload its catapult. Said third pair of bolts made that a moot point when one of them splintered the enemy catapult's frame on impact, while the other punched through two members of its loading crew.
The enemy cog tried to advance through the increasingly accurate barrage of bolts that followed, taking another dozen casualties in the next minute and a half. Then they crossed the two hundred yard mark and the more eager enemy crossbowmen tried their great horn crossbows against Spark Plug's weapons crews. Crossbow bolts bounced off or splintered ineffectually against the transparent shields or the wights' heavy plate, then the enemy got on the receiving end of my warbow. Only half a year before two hundred yards would have been at the very limits of my range. Now they rested comfortably within the distance of sustained rapid fire, arrows that would have been a threat against knights in plate armor killing or crippling unarmored seamen every two seconds.
A man in fancy clothes and green-dyed hair that must have been their Captain was among the first dozen to die in quick succession, sending his crew into panic. That proved their doom as I kept shooting down anyone trying to organize them or turn the ship around. By the time the first enemy ship came within boarding distance three minutes later, two thirds of its fighting crew were dead and the rest were screaming about surrenders. I sent thirty wights to board them instead, to drag out anyone hiding belowdecks while I kept shooting at anyone still alive up top.
Captain Wyll left the depopulated ship to drift in our wake. Looting could wait; the other four enemy ships had decided to band together rather than trying to attack individually and the delay to deal with the first enemy had given them enough time to flank us. Two of them - one from either side - went for a messy collision, their fighting crews hunkering behind shields as best they could on a recklessly fast approach that would box us in and board us from both sides while the second pair caught up, the second wave of boarders plus ranged support destroying any attempt at defense.
A good plan; it would have been deadly against any other target. Even with all the new recruits hidden in Spark Plug's hold we would have been outnumbered, surrounded and outgunned with crippled mobility. The crash worked as intented all right, Spark Plug's hull groaning dangerously as it was caught between two other ships. A steady stream of ranged attacks against the two crow's nests, the two ships entire complement of crossbowmen focusing on my and the other sniper's position forced us to hanker down as combat crews scrambled to their feet after the enormous impact.
Unfortunately for our guests, whose colorful dyed hair and beards and oddly Middle-Eastern accent on their near-Valyrian speech marked them as Tyroshi, I did not need to stand up to attack them. Using Featherball's eyes from where she flew above the battle as well as several other flying scouts to give me targeting information, I started lobbing four-pound ceramic spheres at the two enemy ships from above. A split second before hitting the enemy decks, two pounds of blood-soaked coal dust per projectile ignited and burned in an instant, the hollow booms of forced detonations shattering the ceramic spheres and propelling their fragments and a pound and a half of scapmetal across the enemy decks like the dire, mutant version of antipersonnel grenades that were also oversized flashbangs.
Everyone within ten feet of each grenade died perforated a dozen times over and with internal organs ruptured from the shockwave. Those within fifty feet standing in the open were hit by shrapnel, deafened by the incredibly loud booms and blinded by the violently purple flash accompanying the explosions. In a handful of seconds, the crews of two whole ships were largely crippled. That was when the men of the Dread Company who until then had been hunkering belowdecks burst forth and swarmed the enemy ships like a tide of locusts. Shields bashed any of the disoriented foes trying to climb to their feet, boots and spear butts trampled and shattered limbs and readied crossbows shot down anyone lucky enough or tough enough to fight through the disorientation and injuries, or charging in from the lower decks.
The fourth ship rammed us from behind, but being a smaller cog without a ram it could deal only so much damage on impact alone. Its fresh fighting crew jumped from their forecastle to our aftercastle, seeking to ovewhelm us while we were spread out across three different ships. They were met by Spark Plug's near entire complement of wights. Soon the enemy found out that no amount of courage or numbers could help unarmored, lightly armed seamen fight against a fifty-strong formation of heavily armed and armored warriors that did not know pain, did not know fear, and did not stop fighting when the occasional spear thrust found gaps in their armor.
The fifth enemy Captain saw the writing on the wall and decided on the better part of valor, forcing their ship on a sharp, last-minute turn in a bid to disengage. He had caught on too late however, and his ship came within less than a hundred of the mad, chaotic tangle that was the four-ship-wide battle. Making a split-second decision, I leaped off the crow's nest, vaulting on steps of solid flame that bridged the intervening distance. Several crossbowmen shot in my direction but I was drunk on over a hundred deaths' worth of stolen vitality by that point and quick shields of solid flame threw them contemptuously aside.
The moment I was over the fleeing enemy ship, I emptied the whole bag of oversized grenades on them. Of the twenty I had made a dozen were left; three missed and dropped in the deceptively calm sea but nine fell upon the crowd of seamen, raiders and pirates before detonating like nine consecutive thunderbolts. Hundreds of sharp metal bits scythed through the crew even as eye-searing flashes struck them blind and shockwaves bruised or ruptured organs. Then I dropped the final thirty feet of distance in one leap, partisan spear coming down on a staggering, blindly fumbling warrior and piercing through hardened leather, ribs and heart before coming out the back.
Kicking the corpse off my weapon, I fell on the still standing survivors like a storm of steel. Every step a deadly thrust, every kill another jump in vitality until my body felt like it would burst trying to contain it all. Every man that had been belowdecks came forth to stop me but I laughed, glamour making me sound as loud as a giant. Fire set hair and clothes alight, shadows clawed at the nearest minds, and a burst of chill and darkness pulled at a dozen newly dead corpses like puppets of strings at the very limits of my control, the links to them already fraying. At the moment I did not care; I laughed again as the undead slowed and bogged down four time their numbers for me to burn, shoot, stab, or shred in spirit.
Had the men put up any organized resistance they could have overwhelmed me. Had they brought any large number of crossbowmen shooting from multiple angles they would have taken me down. But faced with sorcery and bombs and the walking dead they panicked and that was their doom. Another flashbang, not a bomb but an illusion briefly pushed to its limits by a horribly inefficient burn of stolen life sent them reeling. A breeze fueled by a few sacrifices' worth of elementalism was turned into a howling gust that scattered the last organized group with tree-uprooting force and it was all over but the screaming.
As the last few corpses hit the deck the clouds blackened overhead and lightning flashed as a river of vitality slipped through my fingers, even as just as much was absorbed by the fist-sized ruby hanging from my neck flaring like a fallen star. The wind dropped to nothing as the tang of drying blood mixed with the sharpness of ozone in the air and the world seemed to dim as a coal-black cloud settled before the sun...Last
Lys, first week, third moon of 294 AC
The remaining forty miles to Lys should have taken less than a day, but wrangling five extra ships with the limited number of seamen Captain Wyll had available proved a chore and a half. It was made even worse by the damage the ships had taken. As it turned out, detonating more than one four-pound bomb on each of them had not been without consequences. The oversized grenades had been meant to injure and kill unarmored seamen, not as demolition charges, but the relative fragility of sailing ships led to shrapnel tearing through sailcloth and rope, denting and cracking poorly made spars, even ruining deck planks at ground zero of the explosions. The need for repairs slowed everything down even further, and we spent the rest of the week crawling along at a snail's pace.
While the sailors worked, everyone else was happy to no longer be packed to the gills on a single ship as each captured cog got thirty Dread Company veterans and seventy new recruits along with the team of less than a dozen sailors struggling to sail the ships properly. The men finally had space to spar and train, which seemed to reduce stress and along with our recent victory improve their frayed tempers. Jorah and Viserys joined the sparring on Spark Plug's deck while Lynesse fiddled with several potted plants she'd brought along, trying to influence their growth with magic to mixed results. Where with Pyromancy she could barely light candles or make a small flame spring forth from pieces of obsidian or granite before tiring herself to exhaustion, with plants she could work for much longer... but lacked the control for useful results.
As for me, I had to stay in the cabin if I did not want the men staring at me all the time. No, my looks had not suddenly improved to some undreamed-of heights; it was just that too many people had seen me take an entire ship by myself. Healing, controlling animals, raising corpses, dueling enemy leaders, all that the men had taken more or less in stride but slaying one group of poorly armed, disorganized idiots was where they drew the line. The suddenly blackening skies and cracks of thunder had absolutely not helped and now everyone from simple recruits to grizzled veterans that should have known better looked on with the kind of awe and hero worship reserved for figures of myth and legend.
Deciding to avoid the mess until it blew off, I stayed inside and entertained Daenerys with fog and breezes and snow. The trickle of elementalism I had before the storm incident had grown enough to move a bucket's worth of water, evaporate it, then make ice by drawing at the humidity in the air. That last bit I had discovered by accident when I'd made it snow inside the cabin, to Dany's delight. Lynesse on the other hand had thrown at pillow at my head for getting snow under her gown. Bad apprentice! Shouldn't she be praising my genius like the men were?
We crawled into the main port of Lys on the evening of the third day after the battle, sailing into a half-empty harbor missing not only the fleet of merchantmen that had been cooped up due to the threat of Tyroshi pirates, but two thirds of the Golden Company ships absent as well. On the pier where Spark Plug moored, a delegation of Lysene nobility waited for us. Tregar Ormollen was there, of course, but so was Captain Sathmantes as well as a tall, slim, dark skinned man in white and green silk robes, with wispy white curls and a silver, neatly-trimmed beard. While Tregar sported his new, perpetually tired face with dark circles under his eyes and Captain Sathmantes was somewhat nervous, the older man was smiling widely, but his dark blue eyes were sharper than that smile and missed nothing.
"Welcome back," Tregar said as he took in our party with none of the surprise the other two were showing at both the extra ships as well as the two Targaryen additions to our small group. He had, of course, been informed of everything partly through our mental connection and through speaking parrot. "I see the crossing was more exciting than expected?"
"Tyrosh objected to our return after we gave them a bloody nose on the mainland, so we had to make a repeat performance," I said with a shrug. "The five new ships and ten tons worth of weapons that came with them were an exciting purchase, yes." Not to mention the gold and gems in the dead captains' cabins. How convenient of mercenaries to carry their wealth with them.
"The Conclave will be happy to know about it," Tregar said almost absentmindedly before his tone became happier, almost eager. "But where are my manners. Lady Belaerys, may I present you-"
"Oh, you are Salladhor Saan!" I exclaimed, ignoring Tregar and turning to his old guest. "I am a fan of your family's taxation of the sea trade and past attempts to unite both the Stepstones and the Basilisk Isles into proper realms," I told him as I shook his hand in the old Roman forearm-grip style.
"The Saan family aims to please, my lady. Why, we have ever stood at the side of our cousins in Volantis and Westeros since the Doom." If the odd style of my greeting surprised him, he showed it not at all. "We ever supported any common ventures, the last not yet four decades past."
"Ventures?" I made a mental calculation, eyebrows rising when I noticed what he referred to. "Have you gone pirate again, my lord?"
"Vile calumny. Who has suffered more from pirates than Salladhor Saan?" He smirked. "We only desired to bring stability to the Narrow Sea and beyond. This everlasting conflict among the daughters of Old Valyria only perpetuates our ills."
"I see, I see..." I returned his smirk with one of my own. "Perhaps we should discuss more in a more pleasant location than the waterfront?"
"Excuse me, my lady," Tregar interrupted, "but there is no time. The Conclave of Magisters asked for your immediate presence upon your arrival."
"Oh bother. What is it now?" While whatever excuse they had for recalling the Dread Company would undoubtedly be amusing now that whatever traitors' plot with the Tyroshi had fallen through, wasting hours listening to a bunch of entitled merchant princes instead of taking a hot bath would be annoying. Unfortunately, the Conclave still ruled Lys and for all they knew I was just an up and rising sellsword Captain. "Lynesse!"
"Yes, my lady?" my apprentice asked.
"Please get our guests rooms in our facilities in the city. Take half my guards with you for security." The other half would be coming with me to keep an eye on the ground while Featherball and other winged spies did so from above. Assassins were still a thing, after all. "Jorah can get the new recruits started on the trip to the training grounds. Captain Wyll, you have my authority to pay for berthing space and repairs from my accounts. Get started on crew recruitment as well. My preference remains experienced seamen over green recruits."
As my subordinates got to work, it struck me that I would soon have over a thousand men under my direct command, in addition to my influence over Tregar and House Ormollen. Nothing impressive in the grand scheme of things, but not entirely inconsequential any longer. That was good. We had less than six years till the Red Comet and time waited for no man or sorceress.
xxxx
The Conclave was very unhappy to learn what actually happened. They made sure everyone else shared in that unhappiness by keeping us in the waterfront palace they used as a meeting place and asking the same questions in slightly different ways for hours. Half a dozen entitled merchant princes, most of them old or fat, bickering while I was forced to be part of their audience. The horror! At least the food was great and the serving boys and girls passable eye candy.
"Tell us again what happened with the Brave Companions," First Magister Orthys demanded once more. "Why would they betray us?"
"Because the Bloody Mummers were opportunistic idiots," I explained for the third time, trying not to stare at Orthys' double chin as I spoke. Weren't Lyseni supposed to revere beauty? However had this tub of lard become the city leader? "After they abandoned their position in Weeping Town without fighting once, they came to us only a few hours' march ahead of the Company of the Cat. That was despite them being a mounted force while the Cats were mostly infantry mind you - as well as the Cats being delayed by our raiding several times. From that alone we suspected foul play, especially given their reputation."
"Suspicion alone was not enough to betray an ally," old man Haen wheezed. "You turned on them as soon as they were in town!" Not for the first time, the anaimically thin old Lyseni glanced at Orthys and the First Magister gave him a subtle nod. While in theory a Magister in his own right with all the wealth and power of the Haen family behind him, according to both Tregar and Sallahdor he was just a pawn of House Orthys. When the Rogare bank fell into ruin and infighting and mass poisonings saw the power of Lys crumbling as Braavos rose, the Orthys had saved the last Haen scion as a means to control assets that would otherwise be lost to their rivals and the Haens had been their pawns ever since... or so I had been told. What I had seen so far only confirmed that.
"What should she have done, Moreo?" Sallahdor snorted derisively. "Invited the traitors with open arms and let them stab her in the back? The Brave Companions had already broken contract by abandoning their position, let alone what they did once in Saelys."
"What they allegedly did in Saelys," Magister Rogare spoke up, another old man with a weasel's face, though his tone was powerful and commanding. I could believe his ancestors were bankers, all right; he had the oily, hungry yet cold demeanor down pat. "Convenient how there are no witnesses from the Brave Companions to ask."
"But there are, Magister," I spoke up and he scowled at the interruption. "The Brave Companions' own Maester is in the city. Qyburn would be happy to explain how that Company used to operate if the entirety of their documents we captured and have provided copies of for examination are not sufficient."
"You should have brought the originals to us," he shot back. "Copies can so easily be faked."
"Guarding against alteration is precisely why we submitted them to the Temple of Trade via courier before the battle for Saelys even concluded," I said in a fake innocent tone. "Isn't that how official dealings are witnessed and guaranteed?"
"Let's set aside the papers for now," the darkly handsome Magister from House Dagareon interrupted our argument before it could pick up steam. "According to your testimony, you hosted the Brave Companions' leadership in your own chosen place of residence, then sent Ser Jorah, an experienced Westerosi knight away with this Maester Qyburn, leaving you alone with four trained killers whose motives you suspected." He stared at me dubiously. "Could you walk us through that particular decision?"
"I was giving them an opportunity to show their true intentions, which they did." Smiling at the memory of that particular plan coming together, I spoke on. "Had they truly been allies of Lys nothing would happen. Had they turned their allegiance to our foes however, they would see a great opportunity to decapitate my Company's leadership or take me captive. They tried the latter and..." I shrugged "died by my hand."
"What an obvious lie," the First Magister theatrically sighed in exasperation, as if he had grown tired of my repeating the truth. That made two of us and might soon enough make just one if he perished to inexplicable spontaneous combustion. "As if a woman could take four seasoned warriors in a fight."
"If you mean a Dothraki with more than nine stone of extra fat, a jester too busy playing jokes to wield a proper weapon, an exiled septon whose only real fight was with the boys he raped, and a traitorous idiot whose only real skill was betrayal then yes, I slew them." I shrugged. "It wasn't even particularly hard."
"You told us their men all died," the aging but still bulky mountain of a man that was Magister Moraqos spoke up, his cultured voice clashing with the many scars on what showed of his black skin. "There were reports of the same about the Company of the Cat and now the Tyroshi crews that tried to intercept you. Why not just capture them for ransom?"
"Ransomed by who, Lord Moraqos?" I asked, truly curious. "In all three cases they were mercenaries with little or no true allies beyond their Company. Us sell-swords bring our wealth with us; with their war chests captured there would be no-one to ransom them to. Keeping them locked up was just more mouths to feed and escape attempts waiting to happen, letting them go would mean Tyrosh getting back more than a thousand fighting men. That would only prolong the war."
"Would it?" he demanded. "As long as those companies still technically existed, Tyrosh would have to pay them the originally agreed-upon wages without getting nearly the original men and equipment, or break their contract. If they paid they would bleed wealth without having the forces to pursue an offensive war. If Tyrosh broke the contract they would bleed support and fighting men as other Companies would see them as unreliable," the Magister explained and for once it wasn't one of Orthys' allies slandering me for petty reasons. "But now that you destroyed those sell-sword Companies they don't have to pay anything and can use the same gold for new hires. This was the perfect opportunity to effectively take Tyrosh out of the war and you and your Company ruined it."
I was about to say that killing every enemy in the field ought to end the war too and in a more permanent manner, when I saw Sallahdor minutely shaking his head. Frowning, I reached out with my mind's shadow to the Magisters with as light a touch as I could. There was some risk they would notice even if it was far, far subtler than trying to outright warg them, but Saan's behaviour made me suspect there was more going on here than I was seeing. Sure enough, Sallahdor himself was both wary and angry... towards the other Councilors. Moraqos was furious at both me and Orthys' faction, while the fat First Magister himself was... eager? Expectant? He wanted me to speak up, to say that I did not know their plans, to further support and explain my decisions... as if he waited for something more to be said. When no further interruption of the Magisters' bickering came from me he first felt annoyance, but more like what a bug in his way would cause, not any great obstacle. Then it crystallized into a decision that had been already there. Not his first option - that was what the annoyance at my silence was about - but a workable second plan on his part.
"In light of the costs of this campaign and the decisions that led to them," the fat bastard started "I move to have the Dread Company repay us an amount no less than the continued existence of the slain companies would have cost Tyrosh for as long as this war lasts. Should the Dread Company be unable or unwilling to pay such a fine for their culpability in the continued war, I move to have them blacklisted from both contracts and port use in Lys, in perpetuity. All in favor?"
Motherfucker...